


Pies

by Viking_woman



Category: Uprooted - Naomi Novik
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Post-Canon, Romance, Sexual References, Uprooted Harvest Faire 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 04:03:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20790326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viking_woman/pseuds/Viking_woman
Summary: A little moment from Agnieszka's and Sarkan's happy future.Written for@uprootedficathon'sUprooted Harvest Faire on tumblr.Set some years afterHome, but can be read as a standalone.





	Pies

He doesn’t think much of it, at first, when Agnieszka isn’t in their bed when he wakes. She normally sleeps later than him, but sometimes something wakes her (the Wood, though he doesn’t want to think about that), and she starts breakfast before he wakes.

She isn’t in the kitchen, though, and he can’t hear her outside. There are dirty dishes in the skink, and a used cup with half a cup of cold coffee is left at the little table in the kitchen.

He takes the cup to the sink and empties it.

He makes himself breakfast, and he is not worried. Not overly worried. He puts down his plate and looks outside. No Agnieszka, and the hollow in front of the cottage is empty, the basket of treefruit is gone.

She must have gone to the wood today.

He sits and eats, and once he does there is a note on the table, in Agnieszka’s messy hand.

_I’ll be at the tower preparing, please come help._

Preparing what?

He cleans the kitchen with a simple cantrip, and casts the spell to take him to the tower. He repaired it, some years ago, and the bulk of his library and his laboratory is there. He uses them often, though he lives in the cottage. The rest of the tower is repaired too – the kitchen and dining area, the guest rooms. They’re all useful when guests arrive from the capital or elsewhere.

Hopefully Solya has not announced he is arriving for dinner. Sarkan makes a face as he surveys the antechamber. No, Solya would have messaged him, not Agnieszka. And he is still afraid of the Wood.

She would not be in library, he thinks, what would she prepare? Hopefully she is not in the laboratory. Is she preparing guests rooms? No, she will be in the kitchen. Sarkan smiles to himself and makes his way there.

He is right, of course. Agnieszka is in the kitchen, slicing tree-fruit.

“There you are! Get to work.”

There are lined pie dishes everywhere, and more dough under a cooling spell.

“You’re baking them into pies?”

“It will be good, and there are so many. Hopefully I can make enough for everyone.”

She hands him the knife and her cutting board, and he goes to work automatically. People eat them now, especially the younger ones. The ones who do not remember.

“What is the occasion?” he asks, but he knows as soon as he asks. It’s harvest time, and the villages will have their celebrations. Agnieszka will want to join her family and her friends, and maybe even visit every village.

“The festival. Danka told me the headwomen and men decided to hold an very large feast in Olshanka this year. Instead of, you know. The Choosing.”

His knife slips and he curses as it cuts deeply into his finger, blood running everywhere.

It’s been ten years, and he’d forgotten.

“Sarkan,” she exclaims, full of love and worry. “Let me see.”

He knows it useless to protest and extends his hand. She picks it up in both of hers, gently.

“I’d forgotten,” he says. His life is very different now. He is glad he doesn’t have to do that anymore. That he doesn’t have to avoid their eyes, as he takes someone away, someone who would fear him more than she should. People are still scared of him, and he still has little reason to go through the cities and villages, but he can go.

“So, you’re not going to send me away with a bag of silver?”

Her voice is teasing, and her magic knits his skin together with a smell of lemon, cool and fragrant.

“You’re my wife,” he says. He does not find it amusing.

She laughs. “All better.” She kisses his finger, and then his cheek. “I wouldn’t leave anyway, Sarkan.”

She picks up the board and fruit and knife stained with blood, and tosses the fruit slices in the trash, and the other items in the sink.

She is still an infuriating impossibility, ten years later. But a good one. He takes her into his arms, and he kisses her.

“I have much more fruit. Be careful this time.”

He concentrates, and everything on the table piles up at the other end. He lifts her onto the cleared space, and slides his hands under her skirt.

“Forget about the pies.”

They do.


End file.
